Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Beating The Dead Horse Of Bipartisanship

Here
I go again trying to defend the concept of true bipartisanship and ways
to achieve it. I scratch my near bald head, watch the political shenanigans in
amazement and am at a loss for words to describe the avalanche of governance
garbage that is filling the space of our daily lives. "How can this be
happening?" I ask. And then I answer, "It's so obvious. Why can't we
get this right and move on?

An
article, by David Frum,"How to Build an Autocracy", in
the March 2017 issue of The Atlantic is enlightening and caught my attention
when it talked about the power of Fox News to the typical Republican
member of Congress and its ability boost or crush a Member's popularity with
their constituency. That power has recently been increased big time with the recent
Presidential endorsements.

E.G.
1/24/17 Tweet: "Congratulations to @FoxNews for being number one in
inauguration ratings. They were many times higher than FAKE NEWS @CNN - public
is smart!" And about his recent CIA speech, Trump said, "That speech
was a home run. That speech, if you look at Fox, OK, I'll mention you -- we see
what Fox said. They said it was one of the great speeches." He told ABC's
David Muir, "Turn on Fox and see how it [CIA speech] was covered."

The
end point of the discussion was that "oversight of Trump by the Republican
congressional majority will very likely be cautious, conditional, and limited."
This is a screaming red flag on the breakdown of governance and the
Constitutional system of checks and balances that is supposed to protect us
from an over zealous Executive branch.

The
article rightly points out that, "As politics has become polarized,
Congress has increasingly become a check only on presidents of the opposite
party. Recent presidents enjoying a same-party majority in Congress—Barack
Obama in 2009 and 2010, George W. Bush from 2003 through 2006—usually got their
way."

Also
discussed in the article is the incredible power of social media. Frum, in a
hypothetical projection envisions, "social media circulate ever-wilder
rumors. Some people believe them; others don’t. It’s hard work to ascertain
what is true." Additionally, we have all been treated to the barrage of
tweets from our new President and his self-proclaimed ability to speak truthfully
and directly to the "people" and bypass the filter (i.e. fact
checker) of the "mainstream media" which his Administration
calls the "opposition party” which should "keep its mouth
shut."

We
must also not forget the enormous power that goes with the Presidency, i.e.
control of all agencies including the FBI and CIA and other intelligence
bodies. That power could be misused as it has been in the past to "harass
political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders,
and to collect evidence using illegal methods."

So,
the Founders, in all their brilliance (and they were unbelievably brilliant)
did not foresee the power of Fox News, social media and the high tech
capabilities of intelligence gathering by those with nefarious or malicious
intent. These factors have and could have a profound disruptive influence on
the system of checks and balance they wove into the Constitution to keep the
Executive branch in check.

Now
back to the dead horse -- bipartisanship. By not engaging in true
bipartisanship in governing, Congress relinquishes a considerable portion of its
power over the Executive branch. True bipartisanship is not easy, and as I have
said in previous posts, it runs counter to the DNA of most politicians, but it
is the key to restoring Congress as the strongest branch of government as the
Founders intended. It is also the key to ending gridlock, making Congress
functional again, and elevating its approval ratings in the eyes of the public.

True bipartisanship begins
with a basic recognition that you cannot govern an equally, ideologically
divided nation with all of the power on one side. It is a recipe for disaster
which is exactly what we have now under the existing power distribution scheme.
It is why Congressional approval ratings generally range between 10%-20%. It is
why Congress, by demonstrating its gross incompetence, has ceded nearly all of
its power to the Executive branch. While Republicans currently have the power,
my position and argument applies to both parties, no matter who has the power
at any given time. Both parties share equally in their responsibility for
Congressional gridlock.

As
I have tried to explain in previous postings, true
bipartisanship beginning with shared power in the committee and
subcommittees system of the House and Senate could completely alter the
legislative process dynamics, reduce the incentive for gridlock games and
political posturing, maximize and focus staff resources and blunt the affect of
excessive lobbying and financial influence.

As
atypical as the concept of shared power in Congress is, it is not without
precedent. The House and Senate Ethics Committees operate and function with the
concept of shared power where there is equal party membership on the committees
and the staff is nonpartisan and prohibited from engaging in
any partisan political activity by Congressional rules.

Imagine legislative proposals for immigration
reform, infrastructure development, health care and a host of other critical
issues arriving on the House or Senate floor after being developed through a
shared power committee structure.

The process would force bipartisanship at the
beginning of the process. Imagine, at the subcommittee level where Members with
specific knowledge of the subject matter from both sides of aisle each present
their proposals for addressing the issue. They would most likely be markedly
different. They would have to argue and debate, have hearings with experts and
testimony equally from both sides, utilize unbiased staff resources to
investigate and develop suggestions and finally craft a compromise. The process
would be somewhat like the Conference Committee process where competing
differences between House and Senate bills are resolved; however, it would be
much more thorough, comprehensive and nonpartisan.

The compromise would have to achieve a
majority vote of the subcommittee and move on to the full committee where it
would again be debated, subjected to hearings, further scrutiny and finally a
majority vote of the full committee.

As the legislation reached the House or Senate
floor there would still be plenty of opportunity for dissent, as it is unlikely
that proposal would achieve unanimous consent. Amendments and debate on those
amendments would be expected and more conventional political maneuvering would
likely occur where the majority party would obviously have the upper hand.
However, legislation developed through this process would be much more credible
and would have true bipartisan roots and support from Members from both sides
with skin in the game.

Similarly, as with legislative development,
the idea of shared committee power with nonpartisan staff would vastly improve
the other major responsibility of Congress – Executive branch oversight. No
longer would oversight be limited to just presidents and agencies of the opposite
party; partisan
witch hunts and character assassinations would likely be eliminated and
effective review of agency programs, budgets and actions would be more
normalized.

As
indicated above, true bipartisanship would not be easy and is counter to the
excessively polarized and partisan political environment that exists
inside the Beltway. But, if Congress does not change its ways we are doomed
with gridlock, ever increasing Executive branch power and the frightening
future predicted in David Frum's article, "How to Build an
Autocracy."

If
Congress does not change its own ways (which is highly unlikely), the now
completely scattered public pressure from interest groups and public
demonstrations should be coordinated and focused on what I have called the Achilles'
heel, the linchpin of Congressional dysfunction – the broken committee and
subcommittee process.

2 comments:

The committee process isn't broken. It is exactly the way that the party in power in Congress wants it. The standing committees have a preponderance of the majority party's representatives specifically to prevent gridlock. If all of the committees were equally divided between the two parties, nothing would ever get reported out to the floor. And, since the rules always favor the party in power, and the party in power benefits from the rules, why would you ever expect any changes to be made?

The same situation pertains to the Electoral College System. Many people want to see it dismantled, but the party in power is ALWAYS in power BECAUSE of the Electoral College and therefore has zero incentive to make any changes to the system, which requires a constitutional amendment that neither party has the votes to pass.

I think the committee process IS broken, but agree it's exactly the way the party in power wants it. It would be enormously magnanimous if the party in power would relinquish its grip on the power, that's why it will take a large scale coordinated and focused citizen uprising to ever change it. Same is true with the Electoral College System which I have blogged about at: https://tinyurl.com/jltta92. I don't agree that nothing would get reported if there was equal party committee membership. What WOULD emerge would be vastly improved over what emerges now -- one sided solutions to two+ sided problems. And, if nothing emerged, maybe that would be a good thing.